Recently, consumer finance companies such as Zhaopin Finance and Xingye Consumer Finance have released their performance reports for the first half of this year. The report shows that the digital transformation of consumer finance companies continues to advance. By strengthening digital intelligence service innovation and building fortress style risk compensation capabilities, consumer finance companies achieve balanced development in scale, efficiency, and quality. Experts say that the consumer finance industry as a whole faced certain challenges in the first half of the year due to multiple factors such as the economic situation, market environment, and asset structure adjustment in the financial industry. However, multiple consumer finance companies have dynamically adjusted their business strategies and continuously increased their technological investment in cutting-edge technologies such as big models, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence, accelerating the promotion of cost reduction and efficiency improvement in the consumer finance industry. Strengthening technological innovation is an important driving force for improving consumer financial services. Since the beginning of this year, the consumer finance industry has accelerated the development of new quality productivity, focusing on cutting-edge technologies such as big models, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence, and using technological innovation to help reduce fees and increase profits, effectively meeting the consumption needs of different customer groups. Empowered by financial technology, multiple consumer finance institutions have maintained a steady and progressive trend in their performance. According to data from Zhaolian Financial, as of the end of June 2024, the total assets of Zhaolian Financial amounted to 157.801 billion yuan; Net assets amounted to 22.091 billion yuan, with an increase of 8.5%, still showing a steady development trend. Xingye Consumer Finance promotes the coordinated development of "region+product" and "online+offline", deepens digital scene mining and product innovation, and enhances the supply capacity of consumer credit. As of the end of June this year, the balance of various loans was 72.485 billion yuan. Since its establishment, it has provided consumer credit exceeding 360 billion yuan and served over 22 million customers. In addition, the net profits of several institutions such as Nan Yin Fa Ba Consumer Finance and Ning Yin Consumer Finance have increased significantly. Large models have become one of the highlights of technological innovation. Against the backdrop of the continuous development of artificial intelligence and the "Hundred Model Wars" in the consumer finance industry, consumer finance institutions are keenly anticipating future trends and seizing opportunities of the times. For example, immediately launching the retail finance "Tianjing Big Model" in consumer finance; Zhaolian Finance, based on its profound technological accumulation in the field of artificial intelligence, has launched the "Zhaolian Zhilu" and "Zhilu Second Generation" financial models to provide technological support for financial innovation. Sun Lei, Deputy General Manager of Consumer Finance, stated that consumer finance institutions can leverage technologies such as big data analysis and artificial intelligence to deeply explore customers' consumption habits and potential needs, thereby providing customized financial products and services for customers. At the same time, retail finance, as a direct consumer oriented financial format, has a larger group size, higher frequency of transactions, and larger volume of data, which can fully leverage the advantages of digitization. Technological innovation has also promoted the online and intelligent transformation of retail finance, making financial services more convenient and efficient. In recent years, with the help of digital wings, inclusive finance has effectively promoted consumer finance services to reach more "long tail customers". With the increasing sinking of inclusive finance, the coverage group is becoming more extensive, playing an important role in filling the gap of traditional financial services and improving residents' consumption ability. Consumer finance institutions are forming a situation of differentiated competition and complementary development with traditional banking institutions, and a multi-level financial service system is accelerating its formation. Mo Xiugen, vice president of China Inclusive Finance Research Institute of Renmin University of China, said that digital development has reduced the service cost and threshold of inclusive finance, improved service efficiency and convenience, and provided high-quality financial services for more people. For example, in terms of lowering barriers and costs, both urban residents and remote rural villagers have the opportunity to access digital inclusive services as long as they have credit needs. In the current environment, consumer finance institutions use technologies such as big data analysis to more accurately assess borrowers' credit status, continuously simplify loan processes, reduce operating costs, and further enhance the attractiveness of inclusive credit. Tailored inclusive services are a microcosm of consumer finance institutions' efforts to promote digital inclusion. The relevant person in charge of Zhaolian Finance stated that under the guidance of AI voice assistants, users can complete self-service authentication and approval, breaking the spatial and temporal limitations of financial services. At the same time, in order to make it more convenient for users to "self verify", Zhaopin has also innovatively launched an industry knowledge graph, providing differentiated online targeted services based on the different demands of users in different industries for financial products and payment time. As of now, the self-service authentication service of China Merchants Union has reduced prices for over 15 million customers and unconditionally waived interest for over 120000 people. Digital accessibility can help improve the accessibility and accuracy of financial services for new citizens, individual businesses, and other groups, and solve their urgent and difficult problems in areas such as entrepreneurship and consumption. With the deepening of China's urbanization process, how to make the new urban population "able to enter" and "able to stay"? Behind this, digital power is becoming an important driving force for the development of consumer finance. New citizen Fan Yali is one of the beneficiaries of digital inclusion. Fan Yali went from a small county town to Zhengzhou and founded Zhengzhou Rooted Logistics Co., Ltd., mainly undertaking express logistics business. In order to expand her business scale, she invested a large amount of funds last year. Although the business problem has been solved, the pressure of daily household expenses is increasing day by day. Fan Yali told reporters that at that time, the customer manager of Zhongyuan Consumer Finance's Pomelo Card was conducting promotional discounts and exemptions in the logistics park. She learned that Pomelo Card provided targeted high credit limits, low interest rates, and exclusive customer manager services, and could smoothly withdraw consumer loans on her mobile phone without submitting any documents. Digital services have greatly improved the accessibility of consumer finance. The relevant person in charge of Tianyancha Data Research Institute stated that from the characteristics of new citizens, due to their lack of credit information and effective collateral, financial institutions find it difficult to fully understand important information such as their property situation, which poses many obstacles when enjoying traditional financial services. Consumer finance institutions comprehensively meet the consumer finance needs of new citizens by developing digital inclusion, establishing data model analysis, and supporting risk assessment plans. At present, digital inclusiveness is accelerating the precise integration of consumer finance institutions into the market. Xu Zewei, Secretary of the Party Committee and President of Beijing Internet Finance Industry Association, said that consumer financial institutions can better use these advanced technologies, optimize service processes, improve business efficiency and provide users with more convenient and personalized financial services by accelerating digital construction. Rural and community areas are important directions for the development of consumer finance. Through digital channels, consumer finance institutions can more accurately grasp the user needs of these markets, provide tailored financial services, expand market share, and achieve sustainable business development. The consumer finance industry has a large amount of data resources to strengthen risk prevention and control, which provides a solid foundation for accelerating its digital transformation. The Guiding Opinions on Digital Transformation of Banking and Insurance Industry issued by the former China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission proposed to strengthen strategic risk management in digital transformation, ensure that the digital transformation strategy and implementation process match the needs of the institution's own business development, technological strength, and risk control capabilities. Sun Lei stated that the urgency of digital transformation stems from the high data density and compliance characteristics of the financial industry. The financial industry has high requirements for data security, accuracy, and timeliness. Digital transformation requires strong security guarantees to ensure the stable operation of consumer finance businesses. Since the beginning of this year, consumer finance institutions have strengthened the construction of digital governance and control systems, and strengthened the foundation of digital transformation risks while ensuring business compliance. The relevant person in charge of Haier Consumer Finance stated that in the field of digital governance, by introducing cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data governance, and security supervision, fine management and real-time monitoring of business processes have been achieved, covering multiple links such as pre loan review. While improving business efficiency, potential threats such as operational risk and credit risk have been reduced. Haier Consumer Finance has built a big data intelligent risk control system, launched strategic platforms, anti fraud platforms, etc., to achieve a full process intelligent risk control system from admission, credit approval, loan operation, and post loan asset management. The power of technology is becoming an important means to protect the security of the financial system and safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of consumers. Du Yang, a researcher at the Bank of China Research Institute, stated that on one hand, big data analysis technology can monitor abnormal behavior in financial transactions in real time by collecting, organizing, and analyzing massive amounts of data. Financial institutions can construct user behavior profiles by analyzing multidimensional data such as transaction habits, geographic location, and device usage. On the other hand, artificial intelligence technology, especially machine learning algorithms, can continuously optimize and upgrade risk assessment models. By analyzing the characteristics of a large number of fraud cases, AI systems can identify patterns of new fraud methods and make early warnings. In order to meet the requirements of the financial industry for user data protection, security, and compliance, consumer finance institutions have established strict data security governance mechanisms. By adopting advanced encryption technology, access control, and other measures, they effectively prevent data leakage and illegal access incidents, and build a solid defense line for user information security. While doing a good job in digital risk prevention and control, the consumer finance industry should also accelerate the cultivation of data value and comprehensively promote the stable development of the industry. Experts say that consumer finance institutions still have a lot of room for data value mining applications. Next, especially with the emergence of new technologies, new tools have been provided for the operation of digital assets. The consumer finance industry should make good use of these new technologies and continuously improve its risk prevention and control level. (New Society)